On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced a 10% global baseline tariff on almost all imports into the United States, claiming the move was a “liberation day” for the US economy. However, this policy is Pro-US, just like China’s People’s Liberation Army. If maintained, tariffs prove to be extremely harmful to the US economy, American consumers and the country’s position in the world.
The 10% tariff is significantly baseline. Trump’s efforts to free the US economy include far higher tariffs. One example is his 25% tariff on all car imports that came into effect on his “Day of Liberation”. Trump claims his policy is aimed at restoring US manufacturing bases, but he doesn’t have time to rebuild this ability at a light speed. Of course, Trump has little to none of such concerns in mind. The same 25% tariff on automotive parts will be delayed by only one month and will come into effect in May. Car prices will skyrocket and supply chains will be clogged.
The United States is the most auto-dependent economy. Most voters are more directly affected by movement than any other Western nation. Trump’s March tariffs in Canada and Mexico (both countries where most of the US automotive manufacturing is integrated) have already caused chaos. There is almost universal expectation that prices will rise.
However, this trend also unfolds in many other supply chains. Many of the US’s closest allies face higher tariffs. Goods from the European Union face 20% blanket tariffs. Japan’s exports to the US are taxed at 24%. People from Taiwan, where chip supply is extremely important to the US technology industry, will be taxed at 32%. India and Vietnam have the two countries supplying the US chain most rerouted, facing tariffs of 26% and 46%, respectively, since the US’s first administration focused a much more sharply on US-China trade imbalances.
The US is not ready for inflation shock. It is still fighting the last inflation shock caused by the seizure of global supply chains during the Covid-19 pandemic and the “bulfighting” effect caused by the international economic reverberation of Russia’s 2022 Ukraine’s full-scale invasion. The inflationary impact of Trump’s tariffs is felt earlier than later, despite some of his team rushing to insist that there is negotiation to lower the tariffs. This is because importers and distributors will need to reassess the profitability of the items they are currently ordering. Supply chains can become even more disrupted due to measures from affected countries.
While there is no doubt that the era of global free trade that Washington pioneered under his previous president has seen the share of the country’s decline in manufacturing, it is perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of that agenda. They will become the main losers of Trump’s policy.
Trump lamented the bipartisan consensus that existed before his rise, deceiving the “globalists” who appear to have driven this agenda, and, in his view, he deceives a strong negative response to the abolition of the stock market. But the irony is that it was his Republicans who did the most to advance this agenda.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan placed trade at the heart of the message of prosperity, both for the United States and those who affiliated with it. Milton Friedman, an economist who has traditionally been highly praised by conservatives and Reagan advisors, said, “Our tariffs are hurting us and other countries. We will benefit from distributing tariffs even if other countries don’t… There are very few steps we can do to promote the causes of freedom at home and abroad.”
Reagan’s democratic opposition was a delayed convert. When Bill Clinton filed the North American Free Trade Agreement before Congress in 1994, more Republican senators voted than Democrats. But Trump is not going to oversee Congress over his latest plans.
But Congress can still play its role.
Trump’s tariffs rely on a relatively thin position. That is, he claims that he has enacted them based on “the basis of national security.” Formally, he justifies them under the International Emergency Economic Force Act of 1977 (IEEPA). The old half century of conduct is one of our most influential laws in history, as it allows for a significant expansion of the power of the administrative sector. There is also the core of the power to issue sanctions and many of Trump’s previous customs laws, not only to impose restrictions on the export of US technology.
However, in order for the President to use these powers, he must declare and justify a fundamental national emergency. Although this has never happened, Congress has the power to end the state of national emergency declared under the IEEPA through the National Emergency Act of 1985.
The US Senate has already voted for withdrawal. Since Trump announced his tariff onslaught, four Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Markovsky and Kentucky Senators of Alaska, former majority leaders Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul — joined all Democrats, and Trump voted for a resolution to justify his Blank Talebs passing 51-48. However, in this action, the Canadian order alone was not targeted, not a similar order supporting Trump’s tariffs in Mexico. This underscores how bleak the political outlook for an immediate reversal of Trump’s latest, much more expensive tariffs, enacted behind another “national emergency” related to the trade deficit.
A resolution to withdraw Trump’s national emergency and overturn his tariffs could only be effective if he withstands his veto. House Republican leaders are not expected to allow even the Senate Canadian resolution to vote, let alone future resolutions that will affect tariffs on Wednesday.
Congress today is not prepared to do what it takes to reverse Trump’s destructive plans.
Some Democrats have begun to move away from the embrace of free trade under the Biden administration. It has its advantages, but it also has its costs and it recognizes it needs to be rebalancing. Meanwhile, the Republican Party was not changing slowly as Orthodox. It has been completely transformed ever since Trump came eight years ago to establish more control than that. It is almost impossible to achieve a two-thirds majority on Trump’s tariffs.
Nevertheless, everything must be done to open the eyes of the people of Congress and convince them to do the right thing.
The economic costs of Trump’s tariff actions will soon be clear. But opposition outside Congress would shatter more norms as Trump seeks to protect his trade agenda, whether it’s from the US consumer, the stock market or the courts.
April 2025 can still signal the release of the United States, but only if Congress frees the country from the tyranny of control by a “national emergency.”
The views expressed in this article are the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
